Hyper Jump
' FTL Technology: Jump Drive' Tech Level 3-6 Nearly Instantaneous Travel (At a Cost) Also called Star Hopping. (Since the Subspace travel time and the star to star hopping method is time-consuming much of the benefits of Hyper Jumping is lost compared to Quasi-Space Travel) Faster Than Light travel via "jump drive", which is a form of point-to-point hyperspace travel. A starship activates its jump field generator while on a vector from one star to another, and the ship is propelled into hyperspace, through which it travels (nearly) instantaneously on a ballistic trajectory and re-enters realspace within the gravity well of the destination star. There are no "gates", but the jumping starship must be within the proper outbound zone and have the correct velocity to escape from the originating star and to arrive safely at the destination star. Optimal jump points tend to be located at about 4-5 AU from the system primary, so after jumping, the ship must travel through the normal space of the solar system (using conventional drives) before it can reach the next jump point and jump again to the next star. Jump drive only works between adjacent stars because the gravity wells are needed to govern the "pitch and catch" of the hyperspace transit. Other stars' gravity will interfere with this ballistic hyperspace trajectory, so it's usually not possible to jump "past" a nearby star to a more distant star. This effectively limits safe jump range to roughly 6-10 light years, depending upon the density and mass of stars in the area. *The energy required for jump is significant, and must usually be built up for several minutes before jump. *The energy cost to jump is up-front, and the ship is ballistic while in hyperspace. It's like a cannon-shot. *The energy cost of a hyperspace jump is proportional to the mass of the ship. *The ship must have some kind of inertial damping system to prevent being torn apart by the transition to hyperspace. *Both entry into and return from hyperspace cause a bright flash of light that is very detectable at long ranges. *The jump is nearly instantaneous, so there is not much you can do while in hyperspace. *Since it is moving faster than light, the ship is blind while in hyperspace. *Realspace momentum is preserved; you have the same velocity after the jump as you did before you jumped. *Hyperspace transit has different effects on different species. Many find it unpleasant and disorienting. Some must go into "Hyper Space Hibernation" *Two masses are required at the start and end points of the jump. You can't jump to or from deep empty space. *It is generally not possible to do short-range jumps from within the same star system. *Hyperspace is chaotic and cannot be directly observed, so accuracy of jumps can never be perfect. *Optimal jump distance (both entry and exit) from a Sun-type star is at about 4-5 AU from the star (Jupiter orbit distance). *By varying pre-jump velocity and position, a ship can exit shallower or deeper into the target well, but at added risk. *A hyperspace "miss" usually means that the ship is never seen again. *The length of a long trip is measured in the time required to travel in normal space from jump point to jump point. *If a jumping mass returns to normal space where another mass already exists, the result is a high-energy collision. Jump Mechanics A jump zone is a conical volume centered on the vector connecting two masses (Fig. I). The outbound jump zone is very wide, and extends some distance out into interstellar space; as long as your initial vector will carry you close enough to the destination star for its gravity well to pull you back out of hyperspace (and as long as you are far enough out / have enough velocity from the departure star to escape its own well), then you don't have to be exactly on the line (the “jump vector”). The inbound jump zone is much narrower; a ship coming out of hyperspace will appear fairly close to this jump vector. How far from the destination star it appears will depend on the ship's hyperspace momentum, which is increased by departure velocity and decreased by jumping from deeper within the departure star’s gravity well. As described in (Fig. II), gravity wells are necessary at the start and end points of the hyperspace jump to achieve proper entry and exit angles into hyperspace. The vessel's starting space-time velocity is added to the +hyperspace momentum provided by the jump drive to give the transiting vessel a ballistic trajectory through hyperspace. Gravity from the stars in realspace still acts on the ship in hyperspace, pulling it laterally between the stars but also "down" in the -hyperspace direction back towards realspace. If the trajectory of the transiting ship again intersects space-time at the proper angle, it will re-embed itself and return to normal space. The more hyperspace momentum you have, the "deeper" into the well you travel and the closer you will appear to the arrival star. If you have too much momentum it’s possible to exit hyperspace too close to or even inside the star, or to overshoot it entirely causing a hyperspace “miss.” If you don’t have enough momentum to escape the departure star’s gravity well, you’ll be pulled back in, either exiting hyperspace inside the star or popping out the other side still in hyperspace, again causing a miss. If you intersect space-time at an improper angle, you may bounce off or even punch through to the other side. Safety Issues and Failed Jumps Jumps and exit points can't be calculated with great accuracy, because the exact geometry of the hyperspace-time "curve" you'll be traveling on can't be directly measured. The n-dimensional curvature of hyperspace is chaotic and is affected by many sources, from the gravitation of nearby stars, planets and interstellar gas and dust, to the rotation of the stellar masses and their electromagnetic fields, not all of which you can measure accurately at these Tech Levels , so there is always an uncertainty factor to account for in your calculations. Therefore, a jumping ship must whenever possible allow for the largest safety margin that it can: it must endeavor to be as close on the vector between the stars as possible, be moving at the optimal escape velocity, and jump at the optimal slope in the departure star's gravity well. If you jump close on the jump vector, you limit the perturbing influence of your departure star's gravity well to a linear quantity, meaning that it might only affect how deep into the destination star system you arrive. If you jump from a tangential point (Fig. III), then the departure star is pulling you laterally rather than directly back, increasing the chance that you might miss the target altogether. In theory, if your calculations are correct you can jump from a tangent point as illustrated above, but in practice it's extremely dangerous. Maximum arrival distance from the destination varies with the mass of the star, but a successful "short-jump" can often bring you in at the edge of system, outside the orbits of most of the planets. The deeper your jump starts in the departure gravity well, the shallower the exit point is likely to be (Fig. V). Greater starting velocity will also cause the vessel to exit deeper into the destination well. Hyperspace jumps can be compared to putting a golf ball. In theory, if you hit the ball hard enough on the right trajectory, you should be able to get the ball in the (gravity well) hole from any distance... but in practice, the irregularity of the putting surface makes an accurate putt exponentially more difficult the farther you get away from the hole. In most cases, the maximum jump distance between stars is about 10 light years, and preferable safe distance is about 6 light years or less. The limitation on jump ranges is based both on limited ability to calculate trajectories past a certain distance (the chaotic element causes the effect of tiny errors to increase geometrically with distance), but also on the interference of nearby stars. The farther you try to jump, the more likely that other stars are going to perturb your trajectory. Higher density of stars will reduce safe jump distance; lower density will increase it. (A safe Hyper Jump across the empty or near empty Gaps of Spiral arms is nearly impossible) In a safe jump, the transiting ship reconnects with the space-time curve at the appropriate angle and successfully re-embeds into space-time, usually appearing 4-5 AU from the target star. In a "short jump," the vessel has less than optimal velocity, and so reenters at a more shallow point in the well, and appears farther from the star (often 6-10 AU). Short jumping risks reconnecting with the space-time curve at too steep an angle, causing the vessel to "skip" back into hyperspace. In a "deep jump," the vessel has more than optimal velocity, and so reenters deeper in the well and closer to the star (3 AU or less). Deep jumping risks being pulled directly into the star itself. Jumping vessels that "miss" the target are rarely seen again in this universe. The various conditions of a failure on reentry into realspace illustrated in (Fig. IV) include: *Overshoot. If either the linear realspace velocity is too great, or the +hyperspace momentum is too great, the ship may miss the target well entirely ("whiff"). If the ship has achieved escape velocity in the +hyperspace direction, it may never return to realspace. Otherwise, gravity from realspace will eventually pull it back toward realspace, at which time one of the results below will occur. *Failure to re-embed into realspace because of angle of entry. This can result in the ship rebounding back into hyperspace ("doink"), or in rare cases punching through realspace altogether and being "liberated" into negative hyperspace. The result of a rebound is usually a series of subsequent further skips until the vessel happens along another gravity well, at which point it will have a chance to re-embed, but will most likely do so in an unsafe manner (see: Collision below). Negative hyperspace is an unknown quantity; objects that enter have never returned. *Collision. Objects in realspace do not physically interact with those in hyperspace (except gravitationally), but if the transiting object reenters realspace at the same location as another mass, the result is a high-energy collision. Matter returning from hyperspace does not "materialize," but rather pushes its way through an extra-dimensional portal. Since this entry is very rapid, and the preserved realspace momentum of the transiting ship is usually quite significant, the kinetic energy of any such collision is considerable and usually catastrophic. The most common collision is with the target star itself. Collisions with planets are rare, because inbound jump zones are seldom in the same plane as the planets' orbits, and if it is, then that jump link is too dangerous to be used for safe travel. Collisions with smaller objects are very unlikely; the volume of space is very large compared to the size of ships and debris, even in the restricted area of a jump zone. Hazards Posed by Very Massive Objects Very massive objects present a hazard to navigation because their mass can pull a ship off course in hyperspace. This can happen with any star, but a very massive star affects a larger area. In addition to making nearby stars more dangerous to hit, very massive star systems can be difficult to jump directly into, because the gravity well becomes so steep that it's hard to hit the target slope without being pulled all the way into the star. This is why the star-forming regions with star clusters and short-lived massive stars (such as the Gould belt surrounding the local bubble) form natural boundaries to safe jump travel. Stellar remnants (black holes, pulsars, neutron stars) of very massive stars pose additional hazards to hyperspace travel; because they form through the collapse of a star, they usually have an incredibly high rate of spin, which causes gravitational waves. These waves propagate into hyperspace and have an unpredictable effect on the trajectory of objects transiting through nearby hyperspace, kind of like trying to putt a golf ball on an undulating surface. Power and Scope of Jump Fields Because of the high power requirements of the jump field, the field generator must usually be coupled with an array of capacitors (or "accumulators") that can build up the necessary charge over a period of time, usually several minutes. Combined with the requirement of an inertial damping system to protect the ship and crew from the extreme forces experienced when leaving and reentering space-time, this usually means that a jump-capable vessel can't be very much smaller (given Loroi or Umiak technology) than a ~100m gunboat-sized vessel. The smallest jump-capable scouts and couriers tend to be between 100-150m. There is no theoretical upper limit to the size of a starship, but the power required to jump increases with the mass of the vessel. In order for an object to be successfully propelled into hyperspace, a jump field must be generated that encloses the object and is of sufficient intensity according to the object's mass that it overcomes the inertia that holds the object in realspace (which I suppose could be thought of as a kind of "surface tension" of space-time). If the field is not strong enough, nothing happens. If the field is strong enough to breach space-time but does not cover the entire object, then the forces acting on the part of the object covered by the jump field will attempt to rip it away from the rest of the object. If the object is not strong enough to withstand this tensile stress, then the object will be ripped apart, and the portion within the field will be pulled into hyperspace while the rest stays in realspace (though it is very likely that the retarding force of the object's structural failure may fatally reduce the jumping portion's hyperspace momentum). If the object can withstand this tensile stress (or if there is an inertial damping field in effect around the mass, as is likely in the case of a starship), then the field will try to push the whole object through the portal it has created, but if the energy of the field is not sufficient to propel the whole object through the portal, then the jump attempt will fail, and no part of the object will enter hyperspace. Any jump-capable tug must therefore usually have jump field generators powerful enough for the total mass of both itself and any towed ship, and able to project the field to cover both ships. Effects of Hyperspace on Biology The experience of hyperspace transit has differing impact on various species. Humans are typical in this regard and experience transitory "jump sickness" which may include: vertigo, nausea, headache, disorientation, visual and auditory hallucinations, waking dreams, and nightmares (for those already asleep). These symptoms usually pass after several minutes. Some humans (especially civilian passengers) may resort to various drugs to help lessen the effect of these reactions. Saresii can experience more severe reactions, including unconsciousness and sometimes mania, and so most Saresii, Kermac and almost all PSI talents must use drugs to mitigate these effects. Some species require Hype Space Hibernation X101, Pertharians, Nul have very little reaction to hyperspace transit. Category:Technology